An Abbott competitor drops out — plus, a special circumstance for Nvidia earnings

CNBC

4 days ago

Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Markets: Stocks edged down slightly Wednesday as investors awaited several major earnings reports after the bell, including quarterly results from Nvidia and Salesforce . The muted market action followed a strong S & P 500 rally on Tuesday, driven by President Donald Trump's decision to postpone the 50% tariff on European Union imports that he had threatened the previous Friday. Exiting TAVR : Boston Scientific announced in a filing Wednesday that it plans to exit the global transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) market. The medical device company said it made this decision based on recent discussions with regulators. Analysts at Stifel point out that this was a $200 million annual revenue business for Boston Scientific, and those sales should shift to competitors such as Medtronic , Edwards Lifesciences , and Club name Abbott Laboratories . Let's say Abbott picks up about one third of that market share, or about $65 million in annual sales. That won't provide a material uplift to Abbott's broader medical devices business, which analysts expect to generate about $23.16 billion of revenue in 2026. But one less competitor strengthens Abbott's market leadership, which we appreciate. CEO update: Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf spoke at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference Wednesday. The most notable headline from the presentation was that Scharf said he felt "very, very confident" that the $1.95 trillion asset cap, imposed by the Federal Reserve in 2018 for past misdeeds at the bank, will be lifted. However, consistent with prior messaging, Scharf did not offer a specific timeline for when that might occur. "I don't speak for the Fed in terms of timing. They've got a very, very diligent process that they go through," Scharf said. "But our level of confidence in terms of where we are and how far we are down that road is extremely high." As we've written before , Wells Fargo will be better positioned for growth once the asset cap is lifted. In a post-cap environment, the bank will be able to allocate more capital to revenue-generating opportunities. Additionally, management will be able to dedicate more time to pursuing growth initiatives. We trimmed our Wells Fargo position earlier this month after the stock crossed above $76 per share for the first time since early March. At the time, we also raised our price target to $80 on the belief that the asset cap could be lifted this year. Nvidia earnings: It's a big night ahead with Nvidia and Salesforce set to report earnings after the market closes. Nvidia is the major market event. The stock was higher ahead of the release, building on Tuesday's more than 3% advance. Per LSEG, our data provider for earnings-per-share and revenue estimates, we're going to be looking at Nvidia's EPS, excluding the previously announced $5.5 billion inventory write-down of made-for-China chips that no longer comply with new export rules. But, like in quarters past, Nvidia's guidance will probably be more important to the direction of the stock than the reported results. Jim Cramer will be talking with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff after earnings on "Mad Money." Up next : Other companies releasing quarterly results Wednesday evening include Agilent, SentinelOne, Pure Storage, HP Inc., and e.l.f. Beauty. Looking ahead to Thursday morning, Best Buy, Kohl's, Burlington Stores, Horel Foods, and Bath & Body Works are scheduled to report. On the data side, there's the second read on first quarter GDP, weekly jobless claims, and pending home sales. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street.